


Come Undone

by oddtwist



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Daddy Issues (of the Weird Kind), Dark and disturbing themes, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Living in Denial, Lizzington - Freeform, Scars, The Truth lies in Dreams, Torture, Twisted and Confusing Feelings, Undercover, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3371609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddtwist/pseuds/oddtwist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their relationship at an all time low, Liz and Red set out to catch a notorious serial killer called the Interviewer. The plan is simple, straightforward and it all goes horribly wrong. They embark on a voyage into the dark recesses of the human psyche and Liz will finally, unexpectedly learn the truth (part of it at least) about the night of the fire.</p><p> <i>Written after 2x10 Luther Braxton</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the famous 'night of the fire'. This fic has been in the making forever and I hope I will finally find the time and inspiration to write it all down in a coherent story. It's just a thought I had about how Reddington met young Lizzie and why he cares for her so much. 
> 
> Sorry about the Red-whump I have in mind for this fic; it's vital for the storyline and I kinda like a bit of suffering in fanfic. Please don't read, if you like your Reddington unscathed and intact.
> 
> Rated M (to be on the safe side) because things will probably get nasty in later chapters.

He’d brought them a new case.

It was the only way for Reddington to get her attention these days, which was a good thing. For the task force, that is. Ever since Elizabeth found out why Raymond Reddington was in her life, he had brought them interesting new cases and Cooper’s team was able to arrest one thug after another. But Liz started to resent the fact that she was the sole reason for their success. If it weren’t for her, they would all be out of a job.

Liz was caught in a devil’s triangle. The more she thought about it, about what Red had done to her, the more she hated him. After those sessions with Doctor Orchard, she was convinced that Raymond Reddington was responsible for the death of her father in that terrible fire and she knew for a fact that he personally had a hand in killing Sam. This so called act of mercy bothered her most of all. Reddington had denied her the chance to say goodbye to a dying man, a man she loved dearly; the only honest relationship she'd ever had in her life. 

She thought she could handle it - a working relationship with professional detachment. It was easy, right? Just go through the motions and wait it out long enough for her to find out the truth about her past. When the mystery of her origins was finally unraveled, she would be the first to arrest Raymond Reddington and lock him away forever. But if there was one thing she had always been struggling with when it came to the Congierce of Crime, it was professional detachment.

He had made her feel special. She'd genuinly believed he cared for her and to find out that it was all a lie, a means to find this Fulcrum he was after, was the biggest disappointment of all. This was a man who had gone down on his knees before her, who had given up his freedom, just to speak to her, but it was all pretence. And now she found herself clinging to all the bad he had done. She learned from first hand experience, that revenge was a powerful emotion as it kept festering inside her. As much as Reddington tried to break the ice with charm, wit and successful arrests, she would no longer speak to him in private. She answered his calls, but would hang up on him when the conversation leaned towards personal matters. Her chilly attitude was possibly the reason why he started taking unacceptable risks, just to win her over.

The plan was simple and straightforward. One of Reddington’s associates had contacted him with the request to recommend a qualified doctor who was willing to monitor a subject during interrogation. Red put two and two together and was convinced that this would lead them straight to a notorious man known as the Interviewer. The FBI had been hunting him for over ten years now and Reddington knew Liz would be especially interested.

“The Interviewer.”  Liz was more than a little suspiciously, when Red barged in at the post office, delivering number 15 on a silver platter. The man was like a shadow. No one had ever seen him, had ever spoken to him, they knew next to nothing about him. But every profiler in the country knew of his ‘work’. The general consensus was that they were dealing with a ruthless psychopath, a careful man, always in control, leaving no trace on the dead bodies he left in his wake. No one survived the sessions with this man and they all talked. “Why do you think your business associate is connected to him?” 

“Because, my dear agent Keen, my associate is a white collar criminal, an overweight. bloated little man with a weak stomach. He would never get his hands dirty. He’s the kind of man that jumps up on the table and shrieks like a girl when he sees a mouse. Arnold DiMaggio has several phobia and wouldn’t go near a bloodstain with a ten-foot pole. He has made use of the services of the Interviewer before. Word on the street is that the Interviewer is looking for a new partner. He always works with a doctor. They help keep the subjects lucid and alive enough to feel the pain he inflicts. He has worked with one particular doctor in the past, but unfortunately the man has met the grim reaper on the steps of a fire escape outside a shady little hotel on the East side. Tripped, fell and smashed his head on the pavement, poor soul. “

“And why, I wonder would they ask _you_ to supply a new doctor?” Ressler asked.

“I’ve no idea.” Reddington was not about to incriminate himself by admitting that he had killed this particular doctor, who had injected him with drugs that made him suffer beyond endurance every time Anslo Garrick took a swing at him. “I avoid doctors and hospitals as much as I can. Can’t stand the smell of disinfectant, nauseating, don’t you think?”

They discussed the case briefly with Cooper and decided that the opportunity was too good to pass up. So Aram provided Liz with a new identity and she would go undercover as Doctor Carol Harper. The team would follow her to the location and they would make the arrest before the Interviewer would actually go to work on the poor unfortunate soul he was supposed to pump for information.

Simple, straightforward - but it all went horribly wrong.

Instead of being home and dry, Liz found herself in the back of van, blindfolded and drugged, with the intended victim lying unconsciously at her feet and no way of knowing if the team had been able to track them down. She was not wired, which probably saved her life, for her cover was still intact.

It all happened so fast; not even Reddington saw it coming. They met at the rendezvous with Arnold Dimaggio, indeed a stocky little man with a golden tooth and a suit that refused to fit his awkward build. They exchanged pleasantries, Red had told the crime boss one of his tales and was about to leave, when he suddenly staggered backwards and slumped to the floor. Behind him, DiMaggio's bodyguard belted his gun, kneeled down and retrieved a tiny little dart from Red’s neck.

“Well, that was surprisingly easy." Dimaggio had smiled at her, his tiny, piggy eyes glinting of relief.”  “You've already met the subject you will be working on, now it's time for you to meet your new partner. I _do_ hope you're not too fond of Raymond."

When Liz had processed the scam, she started to relax. Yes, it was an ambush, but she was not the target. 

"I hope you don't mind he's your ..uhm.. patient.” Dimaggio said when his men picked Red up from the floor and carried him away. Of course Liz didn’t object. If she objected, it would be the last thing she would do. "He did have it coming, you know that don't you?"

“No, I don't mind” she'd answered, surprised at the ease with which these words rolled from her lips.  “I'm sure he had it coming.”

“Tell Red I’m sorry, when he wakes up.” DiMaggio said. “It was him or me. Nothing personal.”

Nothing personal. 

 


	2. The Interviewer

After a restless night, one of the men who had accompanied them in the car, collected her in the morning. The drugs they had used to put her under had caused very lucid dreams – all sorts of scenarios still lingered in her mind, when they made their way down the stairs, along a stylish corridor with paintings of distinguished patriarchs on the walls.

Wherever they were, this was not the horrible torture chamber she had envisioned in her dreams, with Red strapped to a rack, his back whipped to shreds, blood and gore flashing before her eyes. This was pure elegance, a luxurious country house Reddington himself could have chosen for a bolthole. Not at all a place she would associate with the work of the Interviewer: a man who took pleasure in torturing his victims in most ingenious ways. This house belonged to a person of refined taste, a cultured man, not the sadist she had come to know from the profiles. But Liz knew only too well that devious minds could be cleverly disguised behind a facade of sophistication. When they descended another flight of stairs, the atmosphere changed and she knew she was accessing the realm of the monster they were trying catch.

They entered a vast cellar, where numerous wine barrels were lined up against the walls. Liz scanned the dim lit cellar in search for a sign of Red, or the person she was supposed to work with. She couldn't decide what she was more curious about, but apparently they had not yet arrived at their destination. Her companion came to a halt at one of the large wine barrels and opened the front. It opened like a door and directly behind it was another, narrow flight of stairs leading into the darkness below. Liz stepped inside the barrel and made her way down, the oak wood door closed behind them with a dull thud.

The stairs ended on the concrete of a narrow hallway, revealing a mouldy floor and walls sparsely lit by a single naked light bulb. The striking contrast between upstairs and downstairs made Liz shiver and she did her best to ignore the nagging flashbacks of her drug induced dreams about the torture. Vivid images of Red's mangled body flashed before her eyes, but somehow fear was not the dominant sensation inside her veins. It was a strange, new feeling, which made her extremely confident. She could do this. If she acted her part, she would make it out alive. No, she felt no fear when she was walking towards the large metal door that stood ajar: behind it, the cold light of fluorescent lamps awaiting the newcomer. What she experienced was akin to ..... anticipation.

She opened the door and squinted against the harsh brightness. When her eyes had adjusted to the light, the severity of the situation sank in as she surveyed a filthy, medieval cellar that was furnished only for the purpose of inspiring fear. 

The smell of mustiness and decay hung heavy in the low ceilinged chamber. The rough walls were covered with dark, soggy spots along the floor where the mould and algae had coloured the concrete green. There were chains suspended from the ceiling, bolts in the floor with shackles and rope. In the middle of the cellar stood, bolted to the floor, an old dentist's chair, furnished with leather straps around the arms. Next to it, a steel workbench was placed handy within reach. On the surface, several shiny instruments of torture were carefully lined up in a row on a spotless white cloth - a stark contrast with the muck and decay in the room. 

Amidst the horror of this all was Reddington on his knees in a corner on the wet concrete floor. His hands chained behind his back, leaning uncomfortably forward with a thin rope around his neck that threatened to suffocate him. He didn't register her presence, was solely focused on remaining upright with as little effort as possible. 

And then she felt a pair of eyes upon her, eyes that had been watching her the moment she'd set foot in the room. 

“I hope you like my little operating theatre.” A voice to the right of her said.

He sounded pleasant, dulcet, pronouncing well rounded r’s, but Liz found it difficult to place his accent. He might not even be American.

“I am used to clean and sterile environments.” Liz stated and turned around to face the Interviewer for the first time. “That doesn’t mean I like it that way.”

She faced a man of average height, thirthy something, neatly trimmed beard, bright piercing blue eyes that reminded her of Paul Newman. He was handsome, with a healthy tan, well trained, dressed in a plain, but expensive shirt and jeans. He extended his hand and she shook it. Long, nimble fingers, closed around the palm of her hand, cool and soft.

“Call me Hal.” he said, holding her gaze. “I’ve always had a weakness for that Space Odyssey movie. Do you know it?”

“Carol Harper.” Liz said. “Yes, of course.”

“The struggle for existence in which the fittest survive, has always fascinated me.” he continued, without letting go of her hand. “Strength is the only virtue, don’t you agree? And weakness the only fault. You wouldn’t believe what people are willing to do to avoid a little pain.”

“It will be interesting to find out.” Liz answered, making an effort to ignore the man in the corner who was struggling to breathe with a rope around his neck.

“That’s one of the reasons I enjoy my work. There are hordes of scientists out there who would love to experiment, the way I do, but unfortunately they are restricted by boundaries of ethics and law. They would pay their weight in gold to get their hands on my notes.”

“Notes?”

“Yes, of course.” Hal said and finally let go of her to point at his computer in the corner of the room, where a simple desk was placed against the wall. “I am very meticulous in my research. I am lucky really: people hire me for what I love doing most and they pay me handsomely, while researcher need to beg for funds. I approach every subject with scientific interest. I take notes, keep records. I'm considering leaving it all to the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit of the FBI after my death. I'm sure they will appreciate the gesture.”

“Pity that you'll no longer be around to take the credit.” Liz said.

He gave her a long look and Liz suddenly understood why she was here. He needed confirmation - he needed an audience.

“Vanity is not one of my weaknesses.” he simply said and turned around to face his prisoner.

 _Oh, but it is._  Liz thought.  _Look at your clothes, the way you trimmed your beard, the well manicured hands, the expensive, designer jeans and shirt. You’re a vain son of a bitch and that’s exactly why you want me here. I’m here to cheer you on. I’m here to witness how fearless you place yourself above the law, how cleverly you dominate another man, decide about life and death. I’m here to see how you can get away with murder._

They approached the man in the corner, uncomfortably on his knees, his face flushed with the strain of keeping himself upright, attempting to breathe. Red had his eyes closed and took no notice of the couple approaching. Judging by the bruises on his face, they had used the night to rough him up. The collar of his shirt was stained with dry blood and there were several buttons missing from his vest. Seeing him like that caused a strange flutter inside her belly and Liz looked away in an effort to subdue this creepy sensation within her. Instead, she tried to concentrate on analysing her target.

Hal was a fastidious man, neat and well-organised, yet he chose to work in a filthy basement. Liz suspected that the only reason for him to choose a muggy environment like this, was to unsettle his victims. It was humid, grubby and downright unpleasant down here. There were excrements on the floor and the smell of decay was all around them. This was pure psychological warfare: all part of the game, the game of humilation and ill treatment - textbook methods of mild torture.

“I understand that you know our playmate.” Hal said. "Will that be a problem?"

 "Not at all." Liz said. "I wish I had never met him." 

In her present frame of mind, the truth behind that statement could not be more convincing. Whenever Liz looked at Reddington, even in this vulnerable state: beaten and abused, the disdain showed on her face.

"This could prove to be a very interesting session, Doctor Harper." Hal said. 

It sounded as a casual remark, but Liz could read between the Iines. He was testing the water, trying to determine what his new assistant was made of. 

“I didn’t just take the job because of the money.” Liz ventured, in an attempt to put a little more fuel on the tiny spark she'd detected in her new partner.

She noted how he observed her, while she kneeled down to check her patient’s vital signs. Red was trying to breathe steadily and calm, but the rope was already dangerously tight around his neck and had caused deep lacerations in his flesh. And he was trembling, his aching muscles desperately fought against fatigue.

“Tell me, doctor Carol Harper, why else would you take on a job like this?” Hal wanted to know. “I understand your brother is causing you some inconvenience that can be resolved with the fee you receive for your work here. Are you telling me that that is not the only reason for your willingness to help me out?”

That was the official cover story Aram had come up with: a brother with a drug and gambling habit. But Liz had read Carol Harper’s biography well and with her new-found knowledge about the Interviewer, she had to try and approach the situation from another angle. She could no longer rely on the Task Force for back up and had to assume that she was completely on her own. If she wanted to make it out alive, she would have to win Hal’s trust.

“I worked in Guantanamo as an army doctor for a while.” she said, while checking Red's pulse. ”We were above the law back then."

She stood to face him and waited for him to look her in the eye.

"I miss it.”

There was a long look between them and Liz could swear that Hal almost smiled, his eyes glimmering in the lamplight. She knew he was smiling inwardly; he probably couldn’t believe his luck. But Liz had to tread carefully. The man was not an idiot. He hadn’t managed to stay under the radar for more than a decade, without being extremely cautious. 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that you're in for a little fun and games, Carol.” 

“I strongly advise you cut him free now, before he chokes to death. “ Liz stated businesslike, careful not to overstep her boundaries. “It would be a shame if he suffocated before we get to involve him in any fun and games.”

Liz wondered what it was they were after. Who had hired Hal to interrogate Red? Arnold DiMaggio had been scared of the man who had pressured him into betraying Red. It was an ominous feeling, knowing that they were dealing with an adversary who inspired even more fear among his peers than Red Reddington did.

“You're the doctor, Doctor.” Hal said with a smile and gave his aid a sign to cut Red loose. “Let’s get to work.”

She returned his smile quite effortlessly, as if she had just found a soulmate, a new best friend, a kindred spirit. And all the time there was this peculiar feeling of anticipation pulsing through her veins. Anticipation about what they were going to do to the man who had ruined her life, the man who had killed her father, the man who had smothered Sam with a pillow - the man who had totally ruined her life.

 

 


	3. Testing the Waters

_We all carry genes for nobility, altruism, and sacrifice, and we all carry the dreaded traits of narcissism, lust, duplicity, and murder._

We all have some sort of internal cage, we call morality or social programming, which keeps our inner monsters locked up. Occasionally, Liz allowed her inner monsters to take a stroll out in the open. In a world where husbands turned out to be frauds, false friends were after the secrets of her past and people killed each other at the drop of a hat, it was not easy to be true to your values. The monsters in Liz’s cage were rattling their chains - demanding to be set free.

Hal had decided to open his cage altogether to unleash the evil within. He was not just a successful interrogator and contract killer; he had evolved over the years, because of an unrelenting urge inside him. He’d said it himself: he studied his victims, kept records and experimented. He liked what he did. 

The Interviewer had evolved into a serial killer. Some bodies carrying his signature had emerged as unsolved murder cases all over the country and these victims had no connections to the underworld whatsoever. They were ordinary men and women who simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the FBI suspected that the Interviewer was responsible for these deaths.

In the reports Liz had read, most profilers spoke of a man who would not rush things along. This killer took his time and worked on his victims for at least a week. He was not a blunt instrument. Rather than break his victims with brutal force, he liked to wear them down and play with them: with their dignity, self respect, their self image - he liked to take a scalpel and dissect and play with all these tiny little parts of their psyche. He wanted to keep them alive as long as possible, before he administered the final touch. That gave Liz at least some time to come up with a plan. The longer Reddington held out, the bigger their chances of survival were.

Right now, Red’s chances for survival were down to zero, because Hal pushed him forward and he lost the balance he’d so precariously maintained for several, agonizingly long hours. The rope around his neck cut off the airflow altogether and he frantically struggled for a breath of air. 

Without so much as a warning, Hal’s aid cut the rope that was slowly choking him to death and he immediately went down. Hard. His head collided with the concrete floor with an ugly thud.

“Now, now Raymond.” Hal muttered. “Get to your feet will, you? We’ve only just started and you’ve already hit rock bottom?”

He kneeled down and loosened up the noose, while Red tried to breathe and cough at the same time. He gave himself a minute to catch his breath and regain some feeling inside his stale muscles before he made an effort to test the strength in his legs.

“Come on, Ray. Be a man! On your feet.” 

Hal hauled him up by his manacled wrists and did not release him before he was sure Red could stand on his own.

“There you go. Standing all by yourself, aren’t you?” he said with a smirk. “Now, before we start: is there anything I can get you? Coffee? Tea? A hanky for your running nose?” 

Red wavered dangerously back and forth, while he fought off an attack of vertigo and Liz feared he might crash head first onto the concrete again, but she remained rooted on the spot and his stance steadied. A hanky would not be such a bad idea, to wipe away the blood that kept trickling in his eyes.

“You haven’t lost your voice, now have you?” Hal teased. “I have it on the best authority that Raymond Reddington is an eloquent speaker. I would hate to find out the stories were wrong. If there is one thing I love, it’s a man who loves to hear himself speak. It’s vital in my line of business. Makes my work a lot easier, but don’t worry. I love a challenge. Everybody talks in the end.”

Red cleared his throat and swallowed several times before he was able to speak. 

“A bathroom would be nice.” he said finally, his voice still a bit gritty and unused. “Preferably in the Hotel Fayhaa in Riyadh. They have ultra touch heated toilet seats back there. Would you believe it?” His laugh turned into a cough before he continued. “One hundred and thirty degrees in the shade and they have heated toilets seats in their hotels. It’s a mad world, isn’t it, Hal?” 

Liz had come to hate these annoying little stories, but she was glad to hear one now. He seemed back to his old self with a familiar tenacious optimism in his tone.

“Well, I can’t provide you with such luxury down here,” Hal smiled and moved over to the tool shelves stacked up against the wall. “but as my father used to say; do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. My father loved to quote from the Bible. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I have ever heard him say more than four words that did not come from the Good Book. He retrieved an empty paint can from the bottom shelf and threw this to his new assistant. “I’m sure the Doctor will help you out with that slight inconvenience.” It was an order, disguised as a polite suggestion. “Don’t worry, Raymond. She’s a licensed physician. She’s fully qualified to touch your weenie.”

Red and Liz shared a moment when Hal rummaged around in the drawer of the work bench for a pair of surgical gloves. Liz doubted if Reddington could actually see her through his bloodshot eyes. His vision was certainly not clear enough to see the slight flicker of panic on her face.

They both knew it was all part of a game of psychological torture. Hal cleverly used his female assistant to sexually humiliate his victim. He would seize every opportunity to show Reddington that he was a mere puppet in their hands. But Liz knew only too well, that this was not just meant to torment Red. Her head was on the block here: Hal needed to know what his new assistant was made of.

“There is of course always the option to wet yourself in front of the lady, but I advise against it." Hal suggested while Liz put on the gloves he gave her. "The smell attracts rats and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have those rodents sniffing around there while you’re down here by yourself tonight.” 

Liz stepped up to Red, hesitating for a second when he caught her eye. He had that coppery smell of blood about him and reeked of sweat. She didn't look down when she opened the zipper, locked eyes with him instead, with her hands blindly finding her way.

“Tell me, Doctor, why did you give up your work in Guantanamo bay?” Hal wanted to know.

“I was dismissed because I enjoyed my work a little too much.“ Liz answered.

She was thankful for the distraction. This was utterly embarrassing, whatever the circumstances. Red did his best to ignore the intrusive hands on his person, but he only aggravated the whole thing by not looking away, turning this into a contest of wills.

Hal didn't really seem interested in what was going on between them. If Liz had to describe him right now, she would opt for bored. He was going through the motions, following the known path. He'd been there, done that and that was probably why he was looking for a new assistent. He needed an injection in his work, an incentive to keep him going. He not only needed an audience, he needed an equal partner.

“Did your work entail inflicting pain?”

“Sometimes.” 

“Do you enjoy inflicting pain?”

His question sounded casual, conversational, but the underlying meaning did not escape her attention. Her answer would be crucial. This was important to him.

“I like to...... watch. “ Liz said, without taking her eyes of Reddington, who was still regarding her closely with his one good eye. Her pupils grew dark and fully dilated, her breathing was laboured. He could tell by her body language that the adrenaline was pumping through her like crazy. This was not the rush of fear going through her; this was the rush of excitement. “I like being in control and watch.” 

She didn’t see the faint smile on Hal’s face, but could tell she had struck a chord inside him. He had no more questions. He got what he needed to know.

It took considerable concentration on Reddington's part to finally empty his bladder in the tin can, standing nose to nose with Liz, who held him firmly, detached. 

"Thank you." he said when he was finished and when she zipped him up, he tried to maintain eye contact, but she averted her eyes, hiding her true feelings for him. 

"Stop looking at her." Hal said and smacked Red in the face like a disobedient child. "Keep your eyes on the ground."

Red obliged without protest. After that blow he had no use for his eyes for a while anyway. Which was fine really. Gave him time to think about what had just happened. Hal had beat him because he had made his new doctor uncomfortable.

Liz was grateful for Hal's intervention, but she knew the damage was already done. She knew that Red had seen the dark inside her, that murky part of her personality she always tried to hide. He didn’t seem surprised about it. Perhaps he could explain this hidden streak within her, because Reddington knew exactly where she came from.

The more Liz found out about her childhood, the more she feared what she would discover. Not every child comes from loving parents. Even dictators, serial killers, murderers and psychopaths were able to make babies.

What if she had come from a nest that was already infested with evil to start with?

 


	4. The Watcher

Liz marvelled at the sheer ease with which Raymond Reddington adapted to life. She’d predicted this in her profile on him, but to actually witness this kind of behaviour was ominous. If she didn't know better, she would have labelled him a psychopath.

She had seen him sit back and relax, strapped to a chair in the box at the black site, ignoring the heavily guarded men around him. She had seen him smile in the face of a loaded gun, she had seen him take a bullet when Tom threatened to kill his precious asset.

She'd predicted he would feel equally at home in a cave in Afghanistan as he would in the Savoy in London. He was in his element in any situation, even now, when Hal pushed him into the old dentist’s chair and strapped his wrists in leather restraints – a little too tight, a little too uncomfortable. But Red smiled at him as if he was getting ready for a haircut and a shave, instead of being prepared for electroshock treatment. 

He allowed the ministration on his body without objection, when Liz cleaned up the blood on his face and sprayed the open wounds with instant cold spray. She loosened his tie and opened up the top buttons of his shirt to attach the electrodes of a portable heart monitor on Hal's request, all the while ignoring the gray eyes that were steadily seeking contact. While she stood next to him, watching the coloured lines on the little digital display, there was not much opportunity for meaningful looks or a few quick, but unperceivable words, so Liz refused to acknowledge him altogether. Refused to acknowledge how much he needed her right now.

If she was really honest with herself, she did not want to risk another moment of truth in his eyes. He _knew_ that part of her enjoyed what was happening to him. The sweet scent of revenge hung heavy between them. They both knew that she wanted to see him suffer; part of her wanted to see him squirm and Red knew her well enough to know that she had actually briefly considered the option of playing along with Hal thus conveniently getting rid of Red, without getting her hands dirty. She and Hal would go seperate ways; she would make it out unscathed, with one less worry in the world. She did not have to escape, she was after all a hired hand and the way things were going, Hal was more than satisfied with his new assistent and would probably want to hire her again.

She vaguely wondered why on earth she was thinking about that when their lives were at stake. How could her need for revenge and resentment prevail above sound reasoning? She seemed unable to focus, could not find the calm inside her to clear her mind and concentrate, her thoughts drifting off, distracting her from analysing their situation and coming up with an escape plan. From the corner of her eye she made an attempt to assess her chances. Hal’s aid was an inconspicuous, but very alert presence in the room. His best friend, a Smith & Wesson, seemed surgically attached to his hand. It would be difficult to get close to him and take him out, before Hal would get the chance to react. It would be too risky: she would have to bide her time. And time was not an issue, as long as Reddington was alive.

“So, is he in good health?” Hal wanted to know when Liz pulled the sticky patches from Red’s chest. 

“He’s fit enough for a man his age.”

“He doesn’t look it.” Hal remarked scornfully, running his eyes over Red’s defenceless body. “Frankly, Raymond, I’m a bit disappointed.”

He severed the remaining buttons of Red’s vest with a scalpel and flattened his hand on Red's belly, kneading the flesh underneath the shirt with his fingers. The impertinent hand lingered there, with the scalpel dangerously close to his vital parts while he spoke.

“I always envisioned you as a distinguished, dashing gentleman, not a balding, pudgy, pudding faced blob a man who can't even control his bladder.” 

He leaned in close enough to breathe his words into Red’s face. 

“All that extra weight, it affects the brain, you know. No wonder you walked into a trap. You need to keep in shape if you want to compete in the major league, Ray, surely you know that. And women won’t sleep with a man like you unless you pay them handsomely. Am I right, Doctor?” 

“I wouldn’t sleep with any man for a fee.” Liz stated deadpan.

“Ah, a true romantic.” Hal said approvingly. “Tell me Doctor, do you believe in true love?”

While Liz contemplated this question, Hal retrieved a small device from the work bench, which she identified as a hybrid electroshock weapon, a picana.

“True love is for dreamers.” Liz said. “I believe in symbiotic relationships, friends with benefits, no commitments.” 

“Friends with benefits......”

He gave that idea some thought while he emptied a large jug of ice water over his victim's body. Red shivered visibly when the drops trickled along his bruised neck and he took a deep breath to prepare himself for the inevitable.

“Watch, Carol.” Hal said, never taking his eyes off her while he applied the picana to Red's bare flesh.

And Liz did as she was told and found that she was not able to look away even if she wanted to.


	5. Harbinger

The dreams were a constant companion every night since the sessions with Doctor Orchard. She experienced vivid memories of the fire and a burning smell that scorched her nostrils upto a point where she could still smell it, minutes after she had woken up. She’d always had lucid dreams, ever since childhood, especially when she was under a lot of stress.

As a psychologist, she was fully aware of the fact that her work was a formidable stress factor in her life and the resident FBI therapist would immediately advise her to take some time off if she was ever forced to pay her a visit. A futile remedy in her case. Her personal life posed even more problems than the job; with her treacherous husband Tom on the loose, the police closing in on her for the killing of the harbour master and then there was this other disturbing factor that had entered her life no more than a year ago: Raymond Reddington. And today, the sight of his violent convulsions in the chair had triggered a distant memory. Liz suddenly remembered she had been dreaming about the exact same thing ever since childhood and started to wonder if forecasting dreams actually existed.

Back in the room where she had woken up after their abduction, she began to rationalise the idea. There was no such thing as prophetic dreams. When she saw Red being tortured like that, struggling in the chair, she was experiencing the clearest déjà vu she’d ever had in her life. The blood, the moans, that shaking body, frantically fighting the pain - she had seen something similar before and the memory of that event from her past was still somewhere inside her, hidden in the deepest corners of her soul.

The key to her past was right there inside her mind. Now all she had to do was try to unravel the bits of reality that lay in tatters in her memories. It was hard for her to concentrate on her current situation when she was on the verge of a breakthrough, but she willed herself to stay awake and work on a plan to get them both out of this mess alive. Afterwards, she would find out why the sight of Red in that chair affected her like that. Afterwards.....

Despite herself she drifted into a restless sleep, unaware of the fact that Hal's aid had spiked her food with sleeping pills.

                                                                                                                                                              

The noise that woke her was persistant and it wasn't the storm outside. A bolt of lighting lit up the room and she caught hold of her rabbit. Together they counted and waited for the sound of thunder in the distance. She was in a strange place, yet so familiar. There was a white desk, a cabinet with all her toys, the giant Pooh bear in the baby chair next to her bed. This was her world. Her home. She knew her way around every corner, even in the dark. She used to roam the house for hours, finding hiding places and quiet corners to cuddle up in with her rabbit and Pooh.

Another lightning flash illuminated the wall opposite her bed and she kept watching it, holding her breath to listen more carefully. There were strange noises down the hall. She grabbed her rabbit and crawled out of bed, the thick carpet warm and tickly against the soles of her feet. She opened the door and looked into the hallway. It was vast and empty and suddenly she didn’t recognize any of it. Her bed had been a familiar, safe place, but the world outside her bedroom door was alien, a bit scary even, especially with the strange noises coming from the library, where the light shone through the crack of the door. She knew that it was the library, right next to the dining-room where they had breakfast every morning. Encouraged by the fact that she now reognized her house again, she stepped into the hallway, always ready for an adventure, even if it was in the middle of the night. Maybe her father was playing a trick on her and he was waiting for her to find him, hiding in the room, where they would continue the game of hide and seek they had played earlier that day. He probably felt sorry for having left her so abrupt when he was called away on business.

When she reached the door she heard the voices. She recognized her father’s voice, sounding strangely severe and very annoyed. But perhaps this was because he was asking questions and never received an answer. That was not very polite. She carefully pushed the door open a little further to peek inside – maybe she too could play questions and answers.

Her father stood in the middle of the library with two other men: they had their backs turned towards her. There was a fourth man seated in a chair before them, right beside the fireplace, facing the entrance door. The man looked terrible. It looked like he had been crying, because his face was red and shiny and even his eyes were swollen and watery. He looked very sad and very tired, so tired even, that he was not even polite enough to sit up straight. She could understand that the man would not answer her father’s questions – he was simply too tired.

Her mother always told her, that a hug was all it took when someone was sad or hurting. The man in the chair was clearly sad and looked hurt too, but the men in the library didn't look nice enough to give him a hug. Not even her father. He never gave anyone a hug - not even mother. Maybe the man had been in an accident, because his clothes were torn and dirty, maybe that was why he was not happy. Whatever it was he had done, father was very angry with him and continued asking him questions. Father could be like that sometimes and when he was like that even mother was scared.

Suddenly the lights went out and the house was covered in total darkness. She remembered this often happened in the house. Especially during a thunderstorm. She liked it when that happened. They would always light the candles in the livingroom, where they would all sit and wait out the storm, with mother telling stories in the shimmering candle light. She knew lots of stories, knew them all by heart.

But mother was nowhere in sight and father would not be pleased if he saw his daughter snooping around. Quickly she slipped into the room, and hid inside the space behind the bookcase right beside the door. One of the best hiding places in the whole house. No one would ever find her there - if she did not want to be found.

Not that anyone was looking. Her father and the two men went away to fix the lights and left the sad man alone in his chair. She kept as quiet as a mouse and tried to catch another glimpse of him, but the storm was nearly over and there were no more bolts of lightning to illuminate the sky. She still kept quiet, even when she heard more noises coming from the man and in the end, she could hear a sob. Cautiously, she appeared from her hiding place and approached the stranger in the chair.

“Are you sad?” she asked.

In the faint light of the fireplace she was able to make out just enough of the man's face, to see his eyes. Well one eye, the other eye was shut and looked very ugly. He was altogether a very ugly man and again she felt sorry for the stranger, that he had to go through life being ugly and sad. His face looked funny with one of his eyes shut, but she liked his hair: blond with a golden shimmer. She liked blond hair. She herself was very dark, like her parents.

“Yes, I’m sad.” the man said. 

He had a nice voice. She was glad that he could talk after all. Her father would be happy to hear that, as he was under the impression that the man could not speak a word.

She stepped closer and offered him her bunny rabbit. “You can have mr Rabbit for a while. “

When the man just looked at her, she urged. “You can hug him if you want. He likes to be hugged.” 

Then she noticed that the man was in no position to pull anyone into a hug; there were handcuffs around his wrists - he was chained to the arms of the chair.  

"Did you do a bad thing?" she asked.

"Your father thinks so." the man said.

She shrugged her shoulders and simply pushed the rabbit against his chest, so the man could get his hug.

“Go on,” she said “Give him a real hug. It will make you feel better.” 

“I don’t want your rabbit to get dirty.” the man said.

She understood. His face was very dirty indeed, with lots of red smears, so she gave him a long look while she thought about it. 

“You can hug him anyway.”

The man’s lips curled up into what was supposed to be a smile, but she had never seen such an ugly smile. He leaned in closer to hug her rabbit and when he was done he thanked her.

“That’s okay.”she said. “My mother does not like sad people. My mother is sad very often.” 

“All the more thanks to you, sweetheart.” the man said. “What is your name then young lady?”

"Can't tell." she said. "Father doesn't like it when I talk to strangers."

"Why are you here then?"

"I came to fetch my book." she lied. "It's my favourite."

"What is it about?"

"It's about this girl Lizzie Levengood. She's the bravest girl alive and goes on all sorts of adventures with her dog."

"That sounds exciting." the man said. "Best you find your book and sneak back to your room before your father comes back."

But they could already hear footsteps approaching in the hall and suddenly they were bathing in light. She quickly grabbed her rabbit and disappeared behind another bookcase, just before her father entered the library.

And that's where she was and saw it all. That's where she was, watching, how her father kept asking questions and the man refused to answer. That's where she was, watching, when her father picked up the branding iron from the fireplace and placed it on the man's body, over and over again. That's where she was, watching, when she heard the screams and smelled the burning flesh. That's where she was when her bunny rabbit started to cry and her father finally caught her.

He pulled her from her hiding place, yelling at her: he was very angry. He slapped her and she fell against the table. And the table tilted and the books on top fell into the fireplace. That angered her father even more and he hit her again. Her bunny rabbit flew through the air and fell in the sad man's lap. She rushed over to save him, but her father beat her to it. He took her rabbit and held it up, too high for her to reach. 

"This is what will happen to nosy little girls if they disobey their parents." he said, and glanced at the fire, that was rapidly spreading.

She was just a little girl, but suddenly understood that her father was a terrible man. He was going to throw her rabbit into the fire. She screamed and begged and then all of a sudden, without warning, her father dropped to his knees and fell forward, full on his face. Behind him, the sad man in the chair moved quickly against his restraints, stretched out and he kicked her father on the head before he could get up. Her rabbit lay beside the still body and she quickly grabbed it, away from the threat. She took it and hugged it, crying inconsolably. She cried and cried until a voice finally reached her and she looked up.

Through her tears she saw the flames outside the fireplace. The curtains were on fire and so was the bookcase with the Encyclopedias.

"Lizzie Levengood!" A voice yelled again.

She looked away from the fire at the man, still in his chair, both eyes open now. He looked very scared.

"You're the bravest girl alive, right?" he said. "Lizzie, you need to find the keys in your father's pocket. You can do that, Lizzie. Do it for me, please?"

He was right. Lizzie Levengood would. She was the bravest girl in the whole wide world.

So she picked herself up and crawled over to the lifeless body of her father and felt his pockets. The flames were already dangerously close and she started to cough. When she found the keys, she helped to set the man free, just before the flames reached the chair. 

The last thing she remembered was that he took her and mister Rabbit in his arms and never let go.

 

 

 


	6. Treacherous Heart

 

He’d thought he was dead, but now he could feel pain again. It started to gnaw at him, crudely pulling him away from sweet oblivion. He was chilled to the bone when he awoke in the middle of a puddle of groundwater. He noticed he was still bleeding. The blood from his broken nose mixed with the smelly water around him.

He tried to move but decided against it when a spike of hot agony coursed through his body. His skin was blistered and torn where the picana had been applied to his flesh. The burning pain, a constant, underlying throb that prevented him from drifting off into that safe, peaceful corner of his mind again. His throat was dry and sore; he needed to cough, but feared what it might do to his body. So he just lay there staring at the spider crawling on the opposite wall.

Hal was right. He was old – he no longer had the strength and resilience of the young man that got him through rough patches in the past. _Rough patches._ Hal had killed him. Just for a moment. He was sure his heart had stopped at some point during the session. The pain had been so intense, had paralyzed him and left him gasping for air, his heart had stuttered and finally stopped, with his muscles contracting in spasms under the unrelenting crackles of electricity. He had died and now he lived again. He feared that next time he would not be so lucky.

Hal was not pumping him for information, because that was no longer his main motivation for doing what he did. He would interrogate him eventually, to satisfy his employer, but Red feared it could be too late by then. He would stand a chance under interrogation, when he was back in his element and could manipulate proceedings in his favour, but there was no way he could survive this senseless form of torture. Killing was a necessary evil in his line of business and it was something he could understand, but he would never understand the urge to maim and kill for pleasure. 

He closed his eyes again and thought of Liz. She had given him an injection before they left, to ensure that he would stay awake. The dosage had not been strong enough and he was grateful to her for that moment of rest, however small it might have been. He had no notion of time, it felt like he had been here for ages, but he knew that it couldn’t have been more than a day.

Red was no longer sure he could rely on Liz for help. Not because of what he had seen in her eyes when Hal had asked her about inflicting pain. Red had known her all her life and Lizzie just didn't have it in her. There was a simple explanation for her behaviour: the Interviewer had been drugging her from day one. Hal had told him that he always used drugs to make his accomplices more pliable and in this case, with his new doctor being acquainted with her patient, he would not take any risks.

Red feared what Hal’s cocktails would do to Liz’s psyche in relation to him. Although the Task Force was successful, he knew she resented working with him. There were issues between them; he had lost her trust and he didn't know how to win it back. She blamed him for messing up her life, for helping Sam die and to some extent, she blamed him for losing the love of her life. Through simple reasoning she might come to the conclusion that if it weren't for Red, she would still lead a relatively normal life, with an interesting job and a loving husband and perhaps even kids. Red was the one who had robbed her of it all. He was to blame. 

Feelings of revenge could change a person, especially when the use of drugs made them susceptable to the twisted notions of a madman, capable of arousing those vices that lurked inside every human being. Red had seen the way she watched Hal work on him with the picana. Her face had lost all expression and she seemed entranced by what was happening; this was a woman he no longer recognised.

He could no longer read her; the subtle looks, the words between the lines they used to share had vanished. It was getting harder for him to tell fact from fiction when she spoke and he knew she had been lying to him on more than one occasion. Liz had definitely changed after Doctor Orchard's sessions and if he didn't know better, he would have thought that she was giving him the cold shoulder like a woman scorned. Red had never really thought about the effect his actions would have on a woman like Liz. He hadn't anticipated that she would develop those kind of feelings for him.

Feelings were dangerous in his line of work and he had become an expert in avoiding people who aroused the wrong kind of feelings inside him.

Until he'd met Liz in person.

 

 


	7. Fugue

Choking in a whirlpool of disorientation, with frantic voices in the distant, flickering lights and a sense of utter helplessness, she finally heaved for air and violently returned to reality. She was burning up, bathing in sweat - her heart beating like crazy as the screams were pounding in her head, mingling with an all-consuming horrifying stench.

_Fire!_

Liz opened her eyes to an unfamiliar room and tried to focus her feverish gaze. There were no flames. The morning sun seeped through a small crack in the shutters from the window opposite the bed. But for the vile stench that flitted through her nostrils, all was peaceful and normal – until she realised where she was.

Red.

She’d left him on the cold concrete; more dead than alive, while she had been here - sleeping. She had actually fallen asleep.

She closed her eyes again for a moment, to fight off the nauseating smell of burnt flesh, but it was no use. Defying the heavy daze, painfully throbbing inside her skull, she hurtled out of bed and was just in time to make it to the bathroom where she emptied the contents of her stomach. Her body contracted in spasms, over and over again, until the very last drop of fluid was forced from her system. When the convulsions subsided, she lowered herself down on the floor and collapsed against the wall, taking deep and slow breaths, hoping to regain some sort of control over her wretched body.

She’d been dreaming again and like so many times before, there was no clear cognitive memory of her dream. But her body remembered what had happened in her sub conscience: she could still smell the smoke, even now, with the sour taste of vomit on her gums. And that sickly feeling only intensified when she thought of the cellar downstairs.

She tried to recall the events of the day before, but her memory was no more than a blur of images of dream and reality. She remembered the picana, remembered how she just stood there, rooted to the spot - watching. She didn’t know how long Hal had worked on Red before a sudden silence filled the cellar and he looked up at her and sneered.

“I thought you said he was in good health?”

The panic that gripped her now at the memory of that moment was a stark contrast to her mental state at the time. Reddington was dying and she just stood there, feeling nothing at all, until the auto-pilot took over urged by Hal’s angry words. Together they lowered the back of the chair to get him into a horizontal position and she checked his vital signs. He had stopped breathing. She remembered how she’d started CPR, pumping his chest for God knows how long, until he got some colour back on his face and struggled to breathe. She’d given him several puffs of air before he was able to breathe by himself. They’d unstrapped him from the chair, shackled him to a bolt in the floor and had left him there.

She remembered that Hal did not speak to her when they climbed the stairs and walked away from the obscene travesty that was his world. The Interviewer was not pleased; disappointed even in his new assistant. Liz realised that she could no longer rely on her cover to protect her from this man. They had to get out before it was too late. How could she have fallen asleep after that? What was wrong with her?

She took a deep breath of clean air, automatically stroking her scar: one of the few tangible remnants of a past that plagued her night after night. The sensation on her skin was different though. The skin underneath her fingers felt itchy. She turned her wrist to have a good look and saw that the scar tissue was redder than usual and slightly swollen. Before she could investigate further, there was a knock on the door.

“Hal is waiting for you in the cellar.” Smith & Wesson spoke through the door. “If you would like to have breakfast first, then please be ready in five minutes.”

Liz hurried to get herself ready. She splashed cold water in her face and gave her teeth a quick brush to get rid of the awful taste in her mouth. Before she left the room she inspected her wrist again and discovered a similar rash on her other arm, a small red spot just below her biceps.

She was going to skip breakfast.

In fact she would skip the intake of food altogether while she was here. The rash was as revealing to her as clinical evidence; it was an allergic reaction she was only too familiar with. They hadn't stopped slipping her drugs.


	8. Underneath Your Clothes

Smith & Wesson escorted her back, accompanied by a second man whose face was disfigured by an enormous naevus on his cheek. Judging by his drooping eyelids, he had been on guard in a chair in front of her bedroom door that night. Apparently Hal had decided that Liz was not a guest in this house, or an employee, she was kept under guard because he was not ready to trust her yet. On her way down to the cellar, Liz thought about how far she would go to gain his trust. Would she protect her cover at all costs and go so far as to harm a defenceless human being, even if it meant saving them both? Best not to think about that. She would have to concentrate on getting them out of this mess before she had to make that decision.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she braced herself and once again descended into the depths of that sinister side of human nature. The sight of the metal door at the end of the stuffy passage jogged her memory about the first time she'd made this walk. The anticipation she’d felt yesterday was a far cry from her feelings now. The indignation about the chemical manipulating they had subjected her to was almost stronger than the dreaded prospect awaiting her behind that door.

She didn’t want to believe she could so easily be defeated. With her muscles still aching from the violent convulsions, she was pretty sure that most of the drugs had left her system. It would explain everything. The way she hadn’t been able to focus, the memory gaps, the extremely vivid nightmare she’d had, triggered by Red in that chair. That memory was too strong to forget and she was sure she had witnessed something like that before. Not in her work as an FBI agent and she was certain that it was not a distorted sort of recollection of the incident with Tom in their home, when she'd found him tied up and beaten. She felt it in every fibre of her being that this memory was directly connected to her mysterious past. This stranger in her home, chained to a chair, had been holding her rabbit.

She hesitated briefly at the door, before she pushed it open and found Hal waiting for her. He was eating a sandwich at his desk, while he was working on his laptop.

“You sure you don’t want a quick bite before we start?” he said with a sideward glance at Liz.

Apparently he was already informed about her lack of appetite, which led Liz to believe that the whole house was probably bugged.

“I never eat breakfast.” she lied and casually looked around for Red.

He lay curled up in a corner, as still as possible despite the shivering. His clothes were soaked by the muddy water that exuded from the floor. His back ached and his head felt over-large: a residue of the drugs that were keeping him awake. He’d been conscious most of the night, unable to drift back into numbness, his muscles weak from the cold and he’d lost all feeling in his shackled hands. His face was a mess of blood and dirt but he managed to open his eyes as soon as he heard her voice. A surge of relief coursed through him: she was unharmed and looking straight at him. No averting eyes, no fixed facial expression, no secrets and guilt, but the Liz he remembered and he even caught the brief, unintentional glimmer in her eyes. He probably looked as bad as he felt. 

Liz looked away before the others would notice and moved towards the instrument tray on Hal's desk, where her medical equipment was neatly laid out before her.

“Shall I give him another shot?” she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

She wanted to prepare a strong sedative, hoping for a chance to insert it into Hal's veins in a surprise attack. Admittedly, the rest of her plan was still somewhat shaky. She'd have to take out two armed guards instead of just the one yesterday. All she could do was improvise and hope for the best.

“That won’t be necessary.” Hal said and closed his laptop. "Just see to it that you keep him alive this time."

He gave her a contemptuous look and brushed past her while Naevus took up position a few feet behind Liz, his hand resting on the gun inside his belt, his eyes sending her a clear message that it would be unwise to make a sudden move.

“Ready to resume our little game?” Hal kneeled beside Red to disconnect his chains from the bolt in the floor. He lifted his chin with one finger, staring him down. “On your feet then, old man.”

With loathing Reddington eyed the picana he casually held in the other hand. He slowly stirred, defying the spinning in his head, and willed his stiff muscles to move.

 _That’s right,_  Liz thought. _Play along with his games._ _Buy us some time and eventually we'll get our chance._

There was no point in resisting: this was a game Hal had been playing for over ten years. This psychopath knew from experience that if you break a man far enough, make him totally dependent for everything from food to permission to go to the bathroom, you would eventually end up with an obedient slave. Apparently, it was this process Hal found fascinating and wanted to capture, study and record, with each victim posing new challenges. His findings would be food for thought for clinical psychologists – the ones who had the stomach for reading it -no doubt giving detailed insight in Hal’s victims, but above all, detailed insight into the psyche of a devious mind with a lust for control and murder. 

Breaking a man like Reddington would be a real feather in his cap. Hal would have done his research. He’d probably read all the stories and non-stories about this famous criminal in every newspaper article he could find, with a special interest in the paragraphs about his alleged captivity in various prisons around the world - including the last one, when he was transported to a secret CIA black site where prisoners usually simply disappeared. Raymond Reddington was probably his first victim who had experience with torture from both perspectives.

Liz was relieved to see that Red was able to get back to his feet without any help. He looked worse than he was. He still had some life in him after all. The electric surges had left him with a blistered, battered body, but apart from the superficial injuries, she suspected that he was all right. He was not coughing up blood, so the risk that he had suffered internal injuries was probably small. But the matter of his heart, that was really worrying.

“I’m glad to see you back on your feet, Raymond.” Hal said and gave him a pat on the back. “There is some truth in the stories about you after all. Tough old son of a bitch aren’t you. Always one step ahead of the law. I could make a fortune if I turned you in. Maybe I will, when I’m done with you. Do you think the FBI will hand over the reward when I deliver your corpse?”

“I have another proposition for you.” Red said, relieved that the vertigo was now reduced to a mere dizziness. The sensation of poking needles in his hands announced that the life slowly returned inside his muscles. “Turn me in alive and we’ll split the reward when I escape.”

Hal laughed at that. “That would be a gas, now wouldn’t it Ray? Pity we had to meet under such circumstances. I think I might have liked you if we’d met in a different life.”

Red's smile slowly mutated into insolent defiance. “In a different life I would have killed you like a dog.”

 _Don’t aggravate the man, Red._  Liz thought and she held her breath for fear of Hal’s reaction.  _Let him play his games with you, that’s what’s keeping you alive._

Luckily Hal was not in the mood to be provoked. With a quick nod, he signalled Smith & Wesson and grabbed Red by the shoulders, pushing him backwards towards the centre of the cellar.

"Just keep it up, old man. By the end of the day, you'll be on your knees, licking my boots like a dog."

Red was seized from behind, while Hal took hold of the shackled hands and lifted his arms. He reached for one of the hooks, dangling from the ceiling, attached it to the chain and they hoisted him up, stretching him until his feet barely touched the floor. The sharp pain that racked through his sore body hurt him in places he didn't know existed. 

Hal inspected the scalpels and knives on the workbench, lined up there in size order. He picked up one of the small daggers and returned to his victim, circling him, skillfully balancing the knife between his fingers, the sharp tip brushing over Red's clothes, taunting him with each step he took.

"I still have some questions for you Raymond." He stopped right in front of him, nose to nose, amusement flickering in his eyes. "But first we'll get you out of those wet clothes.”

He placed the knife right above the top button of his shirt and moved downwards over his chest and belly, cutting through fabric and the tender flesh underneath. Red shuddered and closed his eyes to bite down the pain. Hal was just teasing; the incision was superficial, only meant to make him bleed. 

"First we'll get rid of those filthy, smelly rags." Hal continued, watching him squirm, enjoying every twitch on his face. "And when I'm finished with that, Raymond, you know what I will do?"

The knife had reached its destination, the tip prodding against the bare flesh of Reddington's side. Hal just held it there and waited for his victim to open his eyes and look at him. He stepped even closer, with the knife in between their bodies and slowly pushed the blade into the soft flesh underneath. His smile broadened to a grin when Red's eyes grew wide and the muscles in his jaw began to tremble as he clamped up, fighting the scream that was raging inside him. But he wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. He had suffered worse. 

"When I've stripped you down to the pitiful little man you are, I'm going to start on your skin, Raymond. It's amazing how long a man can survive without the protection of his skin. Very painful, though. An excuisite experience, for those of us fortunate enough to be able to watch."

That last remark was clearly meant for his new assistant and Liz realised with horror, that out of some obscene kind of courtesy, Hal had chosen an especially cruel method of torture for her to watch - and enjoy.

Red's breath came out in a low grunt as Hal twisted the burning blade inside him before he removed it. Through the pain, he sought out Liz, who was unable to remain impassive this time. She was going to act soon, he saw it in her eyes. She was going to blow her cover and put herself in danger.

"How are we doing, old man?" Hal breathed into Red's face.

With the red hot pain pulsating through his side on every heartbeat, Red took a moment to catch his breath, hoping his vocal chords would actually allow him to deliver his words in a steady voice.

"I'm asking you to reconsider my offer about the FBI." he said, looking straight at Liz. "In fact why don't you turn me over to her right now?"

The reaction from Liz's guards was immediate, they straightened up, clutching their guns, eyeing her suspiciously. And Liz just froze up while frantically trying to figure out where this was going.

"Your research is sloppy, Hal." Red continued. "You know she's lying about breakfast, because she knows she's being drugged. I happen to know that agent Keen has a very healthy appetite in the morning. She usually has a banana fruitshake with a cheese sandwich and coffee."

Hal was not so easily shaken, but Liz could see that the seed of doubt was planted.

"He's lying, Hal." she took a step towards him, but Smith & Wesson blocked her way, his gun steadily aimed at her heart.

"If she's FBI then why haven't they raided the house yet?" Hal wanted to know.

Red ignored the question and relentlessly continued now that he was still in a position to speak.

"Her name is Elizabeth Scott Keen, she graduated from Quantico not so long ago. She went to Cascade High School. Check her credentials, Hal. I'm sure you'll find some very nice pictures of young Lizzie in her Highschool Yearbook that will prove my point. It will be easy to recognise her: she was a beautiful girl, even then."

"Go and check upstairs." Hal said to Naevus and Liz' guard rushed away.

As expected, the internet signal did not go as far as the cellar and he'd have to send one of his men away for further investigation on a computer in the house. With two adversaries left, they would stand a better chance.

Unruffled, Hal cleaned the dagger on the sleeve of Red's shirt.

"If this is an attempt to postpone the inevitable, Raymond, then I have to dissappoint you." He said and chose a new tool from the tray, a scalpel this time.

He moved to stand behind his victim and in one quick, unexpected motion, he cut a slash down Reddington's back. This time Red couldn't hold the back the agonising groan that ripped from his chest. The whole of his back felt like burning as the scalpel severed the flesh along his spine from top to bottom. 

Shaking visibly, Liz took another step towards them, unable to stand still, when a sudden sense of complete impotence overwhelmed her upon seeing how a mesmerized Hal slowly removed the bloody tatters of Red's shirt, exposing a battered body, completely disfigured by tough, fibrous scar tissue.

 


	9. Maelstrom

Reddington had always been able to regard physical damage with clinical detachment. It was a skill he had learned long ago, in another lifetime and it had helped him through hard times before. He was good at it. He was actually able to disassociate himself from the physical agony by finding that safe haven inside his mind, where there was no pain, no sorrow - where there were no feelings at all. That technique had helped him through Anslo’s rage and he had used it on many other occasions, but this time was different. This time he needed to stay alert - this time he had to use all resources available to keep her safe. He needed to see her, reassure her, and somehow let her know that he had a plan.

He tried to assess the damage to his body. He was bleeding, but not as bad as he’d feared. There was blood trickling along the small of his back, but again Hal had only made a superficial cut; just enough to sever the flesh – he only hoped it was not deep enough to make him bleed out.

The Interviewer was still behind him, hadn’t moved after he’d pulled the shirt from his back, leaving the bloody rags at his feet. There was no sound but the steady buzz of the fluorescent lamp above them and his own heavy breathing. He tried to catch a glimpse of Liz, but she had disappeared from his line of vision. From the corner of his eye he could only make out Smith & Wesson’s back, his gun trained on a target before him. He had no way of knowing if she was all right.

“You are no stranger to pain, right Raymond?” Hall finally spoke.

He sounded different somehow - Red noticed the change despite the stabbing pain in his back that made it hard to concentrate on anything else. But he caught the slight tremble in Hal's throat when he spoke. Something had decidedly changed.

“You really are in need of a new skin.”

Red clenched his teeth when Hal suddenly touched him. But this was not another assault - it was a tentative, inquisitive touch. Cool probing fingers, softly feeling the numerous scars on his back, following a path along the rough ridges of damaged skin from his shoulders to his waist. If this wasn’t the sadistic mockery of a twisted psychopath, then Red would have thought his touch was almost a caress, soft and careful, reverently.

“This is old.” he said as his fingers ran along the skin just beneath his ribs.

“You should know.” Red said and coughed to cover up the fact that he was barely able to speak an entire sentence without gasping for air. “You’ve .... maimed enough people... to know a recent wound.... from an old one.”

Hal ignored him. “You were in a fire.” 

Hal appeared in front of him, reducing his chances of catching a glimpse of Liz to a minimum. It was so quiet over there. Too quiet. Reddington wondered if he had missed something: the searing pain had gone straight to his mind when Hal had slashed his back. But he had seen her frozen expression and knew that she no longer saw him – she could only see the evidence of their mutual past. She had been equally captivated as as the Interviewer.

Hal stood directly facing him, studying the scars as if admiring the work of a fellow artist. The expression in his face sent a chill down Reddington's spine. The flushed cheeks, the heightened breath, the widened pupils – for the first time since Red was his prisoner, Hal was demonstrating his true motives, allowing him a glimpse of his true nature. The sight of Red hanging there, suspended from the ceiling, bleeding and helpless to insolent eyes, scrutinizing every inch of his bare flesh – this was no longer business as usual, this was exciting, and Hal’s baser instincts responded accordingly.

“This is not from a fire.” he said, intrigued, pointing at Red’s stomach.

His hand brushed over the two large scars on Red’s belly, the fingertips possessively stroking the rough surface of scar tissue. Red stiffened for a minute, just barely submitting to the blatant intrusion on his body with his last shred of self-imposed calm. If anything, this was worse than a beating. These touches would linger in his memories for a long while, if not forever. But he knew that as long as he could preserve his emotional detachment, he could avoid giving Hal the reaction he wanted. He briefly closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on finding that safe place in his mind again. If he wanted to make it out alive, he needed to play for time and keep Hal occupied and interested for as long as he could. Just another hour or so - he only wished he could somehow signal Liz that help was underway, before she would do anything foolish.

“A branding iron?” Hal asked, flicking his finger against Red's broken nose, demanding his full attention.

“Yes.” Red said, opening his eyes again.

Hal was not going to allow him to shut down. Hal was embarking on a new game.

“Was someone trying to mark you as their property, Raymond?”

Red gave him a blank, haughty stare. Hal’s eyes glittered back at him and Red saw that _he_ saw that Red understood where this was going. This was the true reason why the Interviewer had evolved from interrogator and contract killer into a sadistic serial murderer. Red realised with sick abhorrence that his clinical detachment would be of no use when Hal would put into practice what he had seen in those eyes.

“Dominance and submission, that’s what it's all about, isn't it Hal?.” Despite the ragged breaths, he managed to inject a contemptuous tone in his voice. “You're not interested in human nature." He took another deep breath and mouthed the words right into Hal's face." You're nothing but an ordinary, sad, pathetic, sadistic, little sex killer.”

For all his anticipation of it, the assault still hurt. Red took a vicious blow to his stomach, knocking him off his feet and leaving him dangling for an agonising moment, the strain tugging at his injuries, ripping apart already damaged flesh on his back. He struggled to find his balance once more. A second blow targeted his already broken nose. Silently cursing his stupidity, with his eyes clamped shut, he braced himself for more. But the sensless beating he expected was deferred by Smith & Wesson, who called out to his boss.

“Hal.”

“What!”

With a curious sense of the old familiar detachment, Red noticed that he had managed to break Hal’s calm, but his moment of triumph was smothered by Smith & Wesson’s words.

“Something’s wrong with our pretty doctor.”

Through a haze of blood and pain, Red finally caught sight of Liz. She stood huddled in the corner against the wall, her arms protectively wrapped around herself, eyes staring in the distance – seeing nothing. Red remembered that expression only too well. He had witnessed it before, not too long ago, when she was undergoing regression hypnosis and he’d asked her about the Fulcrum – and the fire.

"Are you sure she didn’t eat any breakfast?” Hal asked.

“”She didn’t even drink a cup of coffee.”

“So, the drugs will have left her system by now.” Hal said and moved closer to Liz, who shied away from the nearness. “Come on doctor Harper or whoever you are, snap out of it.”

Liz looked right through him and only moved to lift her arm to protect her eyes against the bright light behind him.

Lights. Searing into her vision. Panic. Confusion. She was drifting, disconnected, lost in a vacuum with images flashing through her mind, noise and light. Arms closing around her. A presence. Safe. A voice speaking meaningless sounds, but familiar. Sounding urgent, sounding safe. Fading.

"Be careful." Someone said. "Maybe she's faking it."

A new voice, near her. More tangible, petrifying her. A touch. Something was touching her. A hand covering hers. Who was touching her? Reaching for that hand, she looked up into an unknown face, familiar somehow, she stared at it, trying to remember. A handsome face, yet so ugly, foul and tainted with madness and cruelty.

She squinted against the bright lights. Her back hurt. She was pressed against the wall. The wall of the cellar. Hal's torture cellar.

_The Interviewer._

Reality came flooding back in a shiver of adrenaline. She scanned the cellar for Red and found him in the centre, still hanging from the ceiling, battered and bruised, looking straight at her. They were all looking at her. Why were they all looking at her?

"You zoned out there for a minute, doctor." Hal said. "No longer used to the fun of interrogations, are you? Or perhaps you have been enjoying Guantanamo a bit too much for your own good. I've heard of people going round the bend without even knowing it themselves."

"I'm fine." Liz insisted, but she wasn't.

What the hell just happened? She had lost time. The last thing she remembered was seeing the scars on Red's back and then.....nothing. She had lost _time_.

She took another look at Red, her eyes immediately drawn to the burns. He looked dreadful. His body a mixture of scabs and bruises with fresh blood glued to his skin. Seeing him like this turned a sense of hopelessness and outrage into cold, calculated resolve and she took a step towards him to finish this charade; no matter what the cost - and then she looked straight into the barrel of a gun. Behind it, Hal was smiling, but his eyes were cold.

"No you're not fine, Doctor Harper." he said. "In fact there is something extremely off about you."

At that moment Neavus came back. He hesitated at the door, unsure if he should interrupt the tense situation he'd stumbled into.

"Well?" Hal asked, never taking his eyes or the gun off Liz.

"He's lying." Neavus said, waving a piece of paper in his hand. "Elizabeth Keen looks nothing like her."He held up the page with a copy from the school yearbook and appraoched Hal."Unless she's had major plastic surgery."

He pointed at the picture above Elizabeth Keen's name. The image of a blond, short haired girl smiled at them from the gritty photocopy. Neavus showed them more proof; this woman looked nothing like Liz.

"So, _not_ Elizabeth Keen." Hal said.

He didn't lower the gun. Liz knew that he was no longer prepared to trust her. She had become a liability.

"Tell me Doctor Harper, how long have you known our good friend Raymond?"

Liz answered the only way she knew, slipping back into her role, hoping against better judgement to mend the damage that was done.

"I only met him once, a year ago, when he offered me money to help patch up one of his associates."

"Really?" Hal was positively beaming with anticipation.

He took her arm, pushed the gun against her temple and walked her over to Red, placing her beside him, watching the two of them closely, expecting to see the evidence that would prove her lies in their eyes. _Their_ lies.

"Then please explain to me Doctor Harper," he said while he wiped the blood from Red's stomach to reveal two Y-shaped scars on his skin and grabbed her hand to expose the exact same imprint on her wrist. "How come you and Raymond have the same scar?"


	10. Double Bind

At first her brain denied what she was seeing. She was hallucinating. Or delusional. And then her heart was hammering like crazy. The increasing pressure pounding in her skull threatened to evolve into a massive migraine, smothering all coherent thought -all but one: the scar. 

 _Her_ scar. 

That tangible piece of evidence on her body that proved that she once had another life, that she once had a mother and a father - the only precious reminder of her mysterious past. This strangely Y-shaped mark that was part of the very core of her being - she shared it with Raymond Reddington.

Her scar on _his_ skin.  

She reached out, wanting to touch him to confirm that she was not lost in some psychotic nightmare. Her trembling fingers brushed against the coarse flesh of his stomach, a familiar feeling beneath her fingertips; feeling, yet _not_ feeling the sensation of that touch on her body, on her wrist. She looked into his eyes searching for answers she knew he would or could not give and found him staring back at her intently. For the briefest instant Liz saw a look in Red's eyes that she'd never thought to see there in a dozen lifetimes: a look of pure visceral fear at the prospect of losing her forever.

 “Oh.....she didn’t know, did she?”

The feigned sympathy came from Hal, but his words could not break the mesmerizing stare between them. Liz failed to hold back the tears that welled up in her eyes, overwhelmed by emotion and the throbbing inside her head. The intense pain in her mind conflicting with rage, affection and resentment for this enigmatic man who had brought her more questions than answers about her past, but who so desperately seemed to want to guide her along the path that would ultimately lead her to the truth. 

Hal flicked his finger against Red’s nose again. He didn’t like being ignored. Red turned his head away as if to avoid an annoying fly and reluctantly gave him his attention.

“You’ve been keeping secrets from her, haven’t you Raymond?” Hal said playfully, enjoying the flicker of impotent rage he detected in his victim’s eyes. “She didn’t know you have the same mark. Uh-oh! She gonna be aaaangry!” He looked at Liz and saw the tears in her eyes. “This is getting more interesting by the minute.”

He swung her around, to tear her away from Reddington and carefully placed the gun on her head, holding her distant gaze, smiling at her. 

“Now, this time you’re not going to lie to me, are you doctor Carol Harper?” The Paul Newman eyes turned cold and deadly. “Who are you? Really? What’s your real name?”

Liz looked at him, but didn’t really see, didn’t really hear his questions, no longer registered the gun against her temple. Her head kept pounding and her vision was blurred by the haze in her eyes. His body was burned. He had been there, with her, in the fire. He was as much part of her past as her scar. Red had _her_ scar. Why?

“What is your name, doctor?”

Name? Why were they always asking for names?

“My name?”

“Lizzie....” Red spoke, trying to get her to look at him again so he could let her know that it was all right to reveal her true identity. He only hoped that the scenario he had devised long ago as a precaution and never expected to use, was actually working the way he’d intended. Their lives depended upon it.

Liz stared at Hal, as if he had spoken, but in a language she did not understand. She seemed unsure as to where she was and who she was with – totally absorbed by the turmoil in her mind. Red was overwhelmed by a wave of anxiety at the sight of the sudden agony in those dark eyes. _She was remembering_. Her mouth was moving, questions burning on her lips but she was unable to produce a single sound.

“Lizzie...” His voice broke and he had to cough before he could continue. “..tell him who you are.”  

The moment he'd always dreaded had come at the least convenient time and he found that the stronghold he had built to protect himself from his feelings for her was already crumbling. He would not be able to handle losing her.

“ _Lizzie.”_ Liz said, tasting the name in her mouth and mind. She was drawn to Reddington again, losing herself in his worried eyes, losing herself in a moment of clarity as the world around her ceased to exist and she recognised the man who named her. “I’m Lizzie Levengood.”

Hal didn’t fail to notice the look of utter surprise on Red’s face, just as he was well aware that for the moment the doctor’s critical judgement seemed to have deserted her. 

“You killed my father.....” Liz almost whispered the words, but Hal caught them and he curled his lip - one look at Reddington told him that he was as guilty as sin. He bared his teeth at Reddington, pleased with the scenario that unexpectedly unfolded right before his eyes. There was no need for drugs to make this woman more pliable, she would make an excellent susceptible candidate for his games, without any chemical inducements whatsoever.

“How does that make you feel, Lizzie?” he softly asked, careful not to break the spell.

Liz ignored him and kept staring at Red. Her disdain was hard to take. It made something inside him clench in pain, far worse than the physical damage his body endured. A dark, gritty feeling that settled itself in the pit of his stomach like a ball of ice, spreading rapidly through his veins, chilling him to the bone, freezing his soul, killing him slowly.

“You killed Sam and you killed my father.”Liz continued rigorously.

Hal left her side for a minute to retrieve another knife from the work bench. Then he took her hand and closed her fingers around the handle.

Red straightened up in his chains, taking a step back, his fear revealed. Elizabeth would only remember fragments of her past, the shredded memories of a young child, a scared and severely traumatised child. A child who lacked the ability to know truth from lies, distinguish reality from fabrications. But Red feared that if Hal kept feeding her hatred, kept nourishing the resentment that was already there deep inside her soul, she would do something she might regret the rest of her life.

“She is not going to do your dirty work for you, Hal.” he said, silently cursing under his breath because his voice shook. Lizzie Levengood was a name from the past and it was inseparably linked to the most traumatic event in young Lizzie's life. Interpreted the wrong way, this could be disastrous for her psyche.

“Getting nervous old man?”

Liz regarded the world through a haze of memories, flashing before her eyes. Unable to focus. Unable to think straight. Faces and places merged together in an indiscriminate whirlwind of awareness. She looked at the alien object in her palm for a long minute and then she inhaled deeply and took another step towards the man in front of her.

“She is FBI agent Elizabeth Keen.” Red said, more to Liz than to Hal. She seemed to have lost all sense of reality and was approaching him, the knife firmly clutched in one hand, a confused look in her eyes, with a cold core of determination. “You should have believed me, Hal. Without checking online, I mean.” 

“Why don’t you shut up, Reddington.” With the gun trained on her, Hal was carefully monitoring Liz’s movements, storing every second in his memory. “You’re starting to sound like a broken record.”

“Your man wine stain here, just betrayed your location, by accessing a website owned by my people.” Red's eyes never left Liz, he desperately tried to connect with the woman he had come to know as Elizabeth Keen. But that woman appeared to be miles away, hiding in the corners of a shattered mind that had relinquished control to her basic instincts. “They will be here within the hour.” 

Hal was too fascinated by what was going on, but from the corner of his eyes, Red noticed how Neavus and Smith & Wesson both tensed up. He turned his gaze away from her, addressing them directly. 

“I strongly suggest you check it out again. “ he said. “The website is now offline. When you access it you will be informed that something went kablooey.”

Hal was losing patience with him as he saw Liz waver.

“I’ll show you kablooey.” 

He landed a blow on Red’s stomach that sent him hurtling backwards in his chains. A second jolt ripped open the wound in his side, when his muscles strained to cushion the blow. The punches took his breath away and left him drained and depleted - he knew that he was no longer able to utter another word. But he had achieved his aim. Neavus had left the cellar to check his story.

Through the pain, he tried to focus on Liz who was directly in front of him now, unaffected by the violence, her eyes flinty, her face forbidding. 

“Go on.” Hal urged. “What are you waiting for? Cut him up for what he’s done. He deserves it doesn’t he?”

Red held his breath and stared right back at her, hoping to catch a glimmer in those eyes of the old Liz. He was not afraid of dying, that was a reality he had lived with for over two decades. No, he was afraid of dying by her hands. That would be the cruellest twist of fate imaginable.

For several long seconds, Liz did not move at all, did not even breathe but the adrenaline surged through her veins while disturbing images flashed by like a broken film as she gazed into the eyes of this ghost from her past. The stench of burning had reached her senses before the memories did. The fire, the screams, _her_ screams and people dying...burning. She closed her eyes to shut it all out and lowered the knife.

 "Yes, he probably deserves it.” she said softly and turned around to Hal. “But I will not be the one to make him pay.”

Hal had expected as much because he instantly raised the gun and once again pointed it at her head.

“It’s him or you. Make your choice.”

Unimpressed, Liz offered him the knife, the handle towards him, acquiescence in her stance. Hal considered her decision for a moment and then, unexpectedly, he pointed the gun at Reddington’s head. 

“Do it.” 

For a long moment, Liz refused to meet Red's eyes. She kept her eyes firmly on the knife, the handle wet with her own sweat now when she took hold of it again. Then her eyes slowly ran over Reddington who met her gaze with confidence.

"It's okay, Lizzie." he said, slurring the words with his least breath." If I have to die, then I'd rather it be you."

She nodded in approval as Reddington once again straightened up in his chains, presenting her a clear aim at his chest. Straight into the heart. Quick and relentless. For the both of them.

Hal moved to stand behind Liz when she placed one hand firmly on Reddington's shoulder, face to face, holding him steady. She raised her arm and in one quick move brought the knife down, swung it forcefully towards his chest, missing him by inches as she pushed him out of the way, the dagger swinging backwards, behind her, where the blade landed firmly in Hal’s stomach.

Hal staggered aside, screaming, randomly firing shots. Once, twice and a third time. Liz acted instinctively and lunged backwards, aiming to knock him off balance. They both went down hard and she dived for the gun. Another shot was fired before she was able to get her hands on the weapon and the sensation of a bullet that whooshed past her spiked her adrenaline. She threw herself behind Hal’s squirming body, took aim and shot Smith & Wesson straight through the heart before he was able to fire a second shot.

A whole year of frontline fieldwork kicked in and Liz was immediately back on her feet. Two down. One to go.


	11. Attached

Reddington had to use every atom of his will to keep control of his failing body as he was drawn to that inviolable corner of his mind where he would no longer be hurting. The temptation was overwhelming but he feared that he would never make it back if he gave in to the urge to slip away into the blessed void.  He forced his eyes open, looked up into the bright neon light to shock himself into consciousness and felt the full force of the pain hit him like a hammer.

He’d been shot. His left shoulder was completely ripped apart, with vicious jolts relentlessly drilling into him. His breathing came out in shallow rasps, the sharp stinging in his chest suffocating him. He’d temporarily lost his grasp on reality when the all-consuming agony took hold of his senses. He took a moment to catch his breath and then raised his head again to search for Lizzie, to see if she was all right and found her right in front of him, looking at him - horrified.

“Hold on.”

Her voice was trembling with emotion. The tortured look in her eyes did not bode well for him. He’d probably lost too much blood already. They had to get out quickly or he would bleed out.

Liz turned on her heels and disappeared from his sight. Red felt his knees buckle and he had to use all of his strength to stay on his feet, while Liz released the chains that held him upright. When the tension in the chains broke, so did he. His legs gave way beneath him - he crashed to the floor and landed hard on his injured shoulder.

The heartrending cry that burst from his lungs pierced straight through her heart and the tears, true and spontaneous, erupted to sting her eyes. She wiped them away before she approached him again, her hand trembling when she reached out to him. 

So much blood. His eyes fell shut. He was slipping away. 

“Don’t you die on me!” She was fighting to steady her voice, her words harsh yet desperately tender. She slapped him in the face to keep him conscious. Once, twice. Her heart leaped when his eyes opened. "That's right. Stay with me!"

She gave him an imploring look, locking eyes with him, willing him to stay awake. If he gave in now and surrendered his body to darkness, she would probably lose him. She slapped him again when his eyes drooped. The fear of losing him forever turning into anger when she realised she would not be able to cope with that.

“Don’t you _dare_ leave me now, Raymond Reddington!”  _Not now. Not before you tell me where the hell I am._

Feeling less than useless, she pressed the rags of his shirt against the ugly wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding, when a sudden noise outside the cellar made her seize her efforts. Neavus was returning. Liz forced herself to focus and she rose to her feet. The last man had to be taken out and then she could phone for help.

She quickly dived behind the tool shelves and waited, gun at the ready. Neavus appeared in the door, but Liz immediately saw that there was something different about him. He was scared. And not armed. And he did not make a run for it when he saw the bloody mess in the cellar. And then Liz noticed why he remained rooted to the spot. There was a gun pointed at his head, behind it, the familiar face of Reddington’s bodyguard appeared; a godsend from heaven.

“Dembe.” Carefully avoiding any sudden movements, she appeared from her hiding place. “There were only three.”

Dembe knocked out Neavus with one blow, belted the gun and rushed over to his boss. He removed his jacket, folded it in a bundle and carefully lifted Reddington’s head to slide it underneath him. Barely conscious Red thanked him with a grunt.

“About time you showed up.” he croaked.

“Lie still, Raymond." 

“..staying right here...” Red whispered and coughed, which he regretted instantly as a sharp pain racked through him. ” Lizzie...?”

“I’m right here.” Liz took Dembe’s place beside him, while the bodyguard searched for the keys for the handcuffs.

Reddington smiled at her and reached for her hand. She took it, firmly, never wanting to let go again.

“You saved my life.” He murmured. “Again.”

“You can thank me later.” Liz managed a quick encouraging smile but could not hide the fact that she was deeply worried. He was freezing. His clammy hands were as cold as ice. He was going into shock.

“This is becoming a habit.”

He searched her eyes for that look of understanding, that glimpse of confirmation of their mutual past. The memories were there, locked up inside her mind, eagerly waiting for a chance to surface and once and for all reveal the truth about that most significant part of her past that had created a bond between them, even if she was not fully aware of it.

Young ‘Lizzie Levengood’ had saved his life. Without her he would not be alive today. He owed her. He owed her his life and he was indebted to her, which was the reason he was trying to help her sort out her life today. Elizabeth Keen would have to overcome many personal tragedies to solve the mystery of her past, before she would be able to have a free choice in life about who she wanted to be. She had reinvented herself after that terrible tragedy in her childhood. She was resilient enough to repeat the trick. He had vowed that he would be there to help her achieve that, even if it cost him his life. He wanted to tell her that, wanted to let her know that she could trust him implicitly, despite appearances, he desperately needed her to know that he would never do anything to harm her.

“Don’t try to speak.” Liz said when she saw him struggling for words. “Save your strength.”

Her hand was on his head, gently stroking him in a comforting gesture. He couldn’t keep his eyes from closing to enjoy the feeling.

“Don’t you fall asleep now!” Liz warned and he obediently opened them again to watch her.

And he kept watching her while Dembe released the handcuffs and covered him with a blanket. That’s when he noticed he was shivering all over. He was so cold. And he could no longer feel Liz’ hand in his, although he could see that she was still holding him, with both hands firmly clasped around his.

“Good God, Dembe, couldn’t you have warned me?”

A familiar voice made Red tear his eyes away from her. Liz looked over her shoulder and saw a slender little man in a turtleneck with a funny haircut in the doorway. The CZ Phantom he was holding looked like an oversized toy gun in his tiny hands. The man was white as a sheet and looked positively worse than the man he had come to save. He staggered backwards against the wall overcome by a sudden wave of vertigo.

“Go and sit yourself down, Vargas.” Mister Kaplan appeared behind him, striding towards Reddington and Liz with a resolute pace, ignoring the two corpses she had to dodge.

“Raymond, I thought you all knew by now that I am sensitive to blood?” Vargas said while he carefully lowered himself to a chair, completely oblivious of the fact that Raymond Reddington was in no position to consider the sensibilities of his associate. “You could have warned me at least. How am I supposed to be able to look at you in future and not remember... _this_!?”

Reddington was in too much pain to come up with a witty retort, but he managed a slight smile, and Liz felt a glimmer of hope inside her: he was going to get through this. She made room for Mister Kaplan, whose skilful hands she had seen at work on dead bodies, but she seemed to be doing an equally expert job on the living as well. Like a true experienced medical practitioner, she administered drugs and tended to Reddington’s wounds, but she was not pleased. Not pleased at all. You could tell by the way her ministrations lacked any kind of prudence while handling the patient, who did his best to bite back the pain under her cold, downright rough treatment.

“This will be the last time I will ever do something like this for you, Raymond.” She spoke with a punitive tone of voice. “If you need patching up after another one of your little escapades, you can damn well find someone else to do it. I refuse to mop up your blood in future.”

It was not often Liz met someone who cared for Raymond Reddington as much as Dembe did and she could understand Kaplan’s anger. Wholeheartedly. This was an experience she would not care to repeat.

Ever.

She looked up at Dembe, the dark eyes glittering back at her as he saw his boss finally slipping away in a drug induced sleep. Even the funny looking man in the back had gone very quiet in his chair, tensely watching Mister Kaplan work despite his aversion to blood and gore. Liz felt a strange sort of attachment to this odd trio that had gathered together in this cellar of torture and horror for the sole purpose of saving the life of a notorious criminal. The fear of losing Reddington was evident in four pairs of eyes.

A peculiar sense of affection seized Liz when his hands went limp in hers as the sedatives fully kicked in. The occasional spasm in his extremities very inappropriately reminded her of Tom, just before sleep claimed him, which she’d always considered one of the most endearing acts between two people: the ultimate display of trust. Experiencing this with Raymond Reddington was new and unexpected: disturbing and intimate at the same time. Liz didn’t let go of him, gripped him even firmer, this living link to her past, this enigma that seemed to hold all the answers to the questions she had not even phrased yet: this man who had found his way into her life and into her heart - the man who had given life to Lizzie Levengood.


	12. Guilty as Sin

Without warning he was crudely ripped out of his sleep, sweat dripping and pooling down his spine. A dream. Nothing more, just a dream, deceitfully playing tricks on him, stealing all blood away from his brain until he was dizzy and shivering with chills. He sank back down in the pillows, ardently dispelling the wraiths – the faces from the past that tormented him, the dead coming to haunt him amidst the flames of hell.

Keeping his eyes closed, he simply lay there, patiently allowing these familiar ghosts to go backstage in preparation for their next performance. This was a form of torture that was beyond his control. The debris of a life that had gone to shreds; a bitter memory of what he once was, mixed with the harsh recognition of what he had become.

Torment clung to him like a leech to an open wound and he had learned to accept that, but there were times when he wanted to rage against the pain and have done with it all. Have done with the torment, when he saw it in Liz’ eyes, that had ‘monster’ and ‘traitor’ written in them, where there was once only beauty and innocence. Torment was that sickening moment when she twisted away from his touch, his gaze even, the contempt openly flashing in her eyes.

It hurt him more than he’d ever thought possible that she no longer trusted him. The one person he had never lied to, the one person he needed to believe in him, for he knew perfectly well that there were too many ugly secrets living inside him. And the biggest secret, the cruellest of all torments, was finally discovering that he was still capable of love.

He had refused to recognise the signs and by the time the sentiment had irretrievably settled in his veins, it was too late and he could no longer deny that his feelings of benevolence had changed into something else entirely. He had to be on his guard; could not allow his heart to rule his mind. Not in this case, not with her. Never with her. She was too important. He would never risk hurting her on account of his own passion, his weakness. Never again.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, clearing his mind, drowning the chimera into a pool of blackness in his mind, where he would not be able to see it for a while. Only for a while - like the past this would haunt him in this life and the next.

When his eyes had adjusted to the world around him, his analytical mind took over. He did not recognize the room. He was in bed and there were IV-tubes and wires attached to him, a needle stuck into the vein of his right arm, but he was not in a hospital. This was a normal bedroom, newly decorated and freshly painted in pastels, with nothing on the walls to divulge the taste of the occupant. The pleasant whiff of soap was initially appreciated, but turned into a painful reminder of the ugly smell that had been part of his world the past few days; the rancid, sickening scent of blood and the mouldy atmosphere of Hal’s torture chamber.

“Just a dream, Raymond.” Dembe rose from the chair opposite the bed, a book in his hands, and a genuine look of joy in the eyes of his friend who knew him far better than he had ever known himself. “They are important. You should not ignore them or they’ll get worse.”

On that word of unsolicited advice, Dembe moved to the door, his task over, guarding his injured employer in case of an emergency, and he left without so much as a second glance. Dembe projected his proud nature onto his boss, and recognized the need for privacy in a moment of weakness.

Mister Kaplan had no such reservations. She swirled into the bedroom with her usual professional focus and started checking the instruments that monitored Reddington’s condition.

“Well, you’re alive at least.” She concluded while she scanned the ECG factsheet.

Alive and well patched up as Red soon discovered. His body was sore, but thanks to the intravenous sedative, there was no longer any actual pain. He raised his left arm and gingerly moved his hand, flexed his fingers, even stretched out and dared to move his bandaged shoulder which had felt beyond repair before he had slipped into unconsciousness. When all seemed to work as it should, he visibly relaxed.

“Try not to make any sudden moves just yet.” Kaplan said, checking the IV feed. “Are you in pain?”

“I feel quite marvellous, really.”

“I bet you do.”

“I trust you‘ve found me a beautiful nurse who is going to take care of me?” he inquired. Sometimes it frightened him how easily he made the transition into Red, the untouchable Concierge of Crime, leaving his other self behind in the wings. “Did I ever tell you about this outlandishly ravishing woman who nursed me back to health in Haiti? A staggering beauty, endowed with ...“

“We have a volunteer.” Kaplan cut him off, clearly not in the mood for one of his stories. “She told me you two have been playing doctors and nurses before.” She turned off the ECG and removed the electrodes from his chest, without any consideration for his tender skin. “Really, Raymond, couldn’t you have steered your carnal desires away from her and throw yourself into a lustful encounter with a nondescript nymphomaniac instead? Why did it have to be her?”

The ‘shame on you’ in her disciplinary glance smothered a clever quip on his part and Reddington was too distracted by the memory of the intimacies he’d been forced to share with his protégé. Any attempt to deny Kaplan’s assumption would only result in making him feel guilty all the same. He was guilty, technically. Guilty as sin for feeling the way he did.

“Try not to exert yourself too much,” she advised, her features softening into mild concern. “It was not easy stitching you up. I would'nt care to repeat the exercise when I get back.”

“Are you leaving?”

“There is the small matter of finding out who was behind your abduction. We are holding one of the Interviewer’s men in that awful cellar. When I say we, I mean Vargas, and you know he is useless when it comes to applying the right kind of pressure. Dembe and I are going over there to help him get results and clean up the mess.”

“While you’re at it, bring me Hal’s laptop. There might be some interesting data on it that will lead us to his clients. I doubt Hal’s aid knows anything relevant, but please do your best.”

“I’ll let your nurse know you’re awake.”

“She’s here?”

“She’s helped with the suturing and has been watching you all night until Dembe took over this morning.” Kaplan said. “She’s taking a nap on the couch.”

In a flash, the air of relaxation vanished. The prospect of being alone with Liz in his current situation, when he was not sure he could fully rely on his faculties, with the IV drip feeding him these blessed sedatives...... she would have questions. Questions about Lizzie Levengood, about the fire, about her father, and about him. One slip of the tongue could ruin all his efforts of the past year. Not lying to her was akin to walking a tightrope and in this room, in this bed, walking out on her when things became uncomfortable, was not an option.

“Tread carefully, Raymond.” Kaplan said, when she noticed his uneasiness. “She deserves a chance to build a decent life; not the mirage you call living.”

Red’s eyes hardened, but Kaplan did not look away. She had known Reddington long enough to feel confident about telling him some home truths without having to fear serious repercussions. After all, she was only voicing what he had known for a long time already. Underneath all this charm and wit, there lived a desperately unhappy man.


	13. Q & A

As a young girl, Liz fantasized about her scar, about how she had gotten it, and why. Truth of the matter was that she had no recollection of the event, but sometimes she remembered the pain so vividly that her palm was actually sensitive to touch. Especially after a nightmare, when the memories of fire and flames would linger, mere disjointed images, as elusive as a flash of lighting, like apparitions, almost instantly forgotten - but for the pain.

When she started school people asked her about it. Classmates, teachers and parents; they were all curious. In the beginning it was frustrating for her that she was not able to tell them from memory how this peculiar shape had ended up on her wrist. That's why young Lizzie had devised a story that would satisfy everyone’s curiosity and align her perception of early childhood at the same time. 

She’d been toying with all sorts of scenarios until she settled for the one she wanted most: the scar was a special gift from her father, the last exchange between them before they were crudely separated. He had branded her, so he would always recognize his little girl, even after decades of being apart. He would come back for her. Someday she would be reunited with her family. That’s why she never had it removed when beauty became an issue in her teens. And Sam never suggested anything of the sort. He used to tell her that without it, she would lose part of her identity. So Liz had kept it, treasured it even, in the firm belief that one day she would discover the significance of that mysterious sign on her wrist.

To find the exact same scar on someone else’s skin was almost an affront. This was something special she shared with her father and nothing and no one should ever come between that. But it had. Discovering her scar on Raymond Reddington’s body had left her in a state of mild shock, because she knew exactly how he’d gotten it. The torture sessions in Hal’s cellar had triggered something in Liz’ brain, that utterly deranged all certainties in her life.

The disturbing memories were still vague and mere notions, but she knew with absolute certainty that it was her father who’d maimed Reddington. Her father had tortured him with a branding iron. The idea that Raymond Reddington had been a victim began to take shape in her mind and it frightened her, because deep down she knew this was closer to the truth than any of the stories she had ever concocted. Suddenly, the harsh reality of a past that was lurking inside her, came to awareness, settling in her belly like a throbbing ulcer; that unearthly idea she had suppressed all her life about the true nature of her father emerged in all its ugliness. 

Reddington woke from the light sleep he’d slumbered into, shifting uneasily under her steady gaze. He hadn’t heard her come in. As he feared, the sedatives were working just fine: he was nicely numb and it was easy to pleasantly doze off, lying comfortably propped up amidst the pillows, safe and well cared for.

She sat in the chair next to the bed and watched him in silence. With the horror of the torture still vividly in his mind, it felt oddly surrealistic to face her again. She had seen him at his weakest, had seen how he too could be brought down on his knees. The idea to have suffered in her esteem was harder to take than the physical pain. 

“May I see them?” she finally spoke.

It was the perfect reversal of their first meeting but this time, it was Liz who made _him_ uneasy with her request. She remembered how she'd felt, when he had asked her to see her scar, this criminal who sat opposite her, inside a box, caged in and chained like some dangerous animal. Little did she know then that this enemy of the state would become her greatest ally, the man who would save her life in days to come, the man who knew secrets about her past, who knew the falseness of her marriage; who considered her important enough to risk his life and freedom for, over and over again, just to help her unravel the mystery of her past. 

He raised himself into sitting position, watching her closely, trying to determine her mood, but Liz remained impassive and it nagged him that he was not able to read her. It was clear that something had changed because of the memories. He needed her to remember, but was realistic enough to understand that a single traumatic event was not nearly enough to fully restore her broken memory. There was a long and painful road ahead and she’d only just taken her first steps towards the goal; she had found out about the scars.

He lowered the sheets and lifted up his pyjama shirt to expose the stomach area. A spotless white bandage stood out starkly against the battered skin underneath, where one of the scars was clearly visible. Liz held out her hand, palm up, comparing them once again, taking in the evidence of their mutual past with silent detachment. 

“My father did this to you.” 

“Yes.” 

“But he was not the one who branded me.” 

The memory was simply not there. The _story_ was there, the one she had fabricated as a child, the exciting scenario she had written to fill in the blanks, to answer the questions that could not be answered, but she ventured towards another scenario now and watched Red’s reaction closely in search for more scraps about her past.   

“ _You_ did.” 

“Yes.” 

A plain and simple yes. Reddington was very still, just looked at her, scarcely even seemed to breathe; it was impossible as ever to read his thoughts on his face, but Liz was grateful for his honesty and probed on.

“So you would be able to recognise me when you found me again.” 

“Yes." 

“You knew you would not see me for a while.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to you?”

Suddenly self-conscious, Reddington pulled the sheets up to his chest. He had prepared himself for these questions, but that did not make it easier to answer them, or rather, _not_ answer them. He always found it hard, if not impossible to keep balancing between gaining her trust by opening up to her, and pushing her away because he could not provide her with all the answer she so desperately required.

“Let’s say, I disappeared from the face of the earth for a while.”

“You asked Sam to take me in because you could not do it yourself.” 

“Yes.” 

“What did you do to me to make me forget my past, my family and your precious Fulcrum?” she asked with an undisguised bitter ache in that last word.

“I didn’t do anything Lizzie." he said softly. "I can only assume that your mind went into protection mode back then. We were going to die, Liz. I screamed at you, pleaded with you, tried to bring you out of your catatonic state when the fire started. You were just a frightened little girl and had just witnessed......” he stopped himself before he would tell her too much. “It was not until I called out for Lizzie Levengood that I finally started to get through to you and that saved both our lives.”

“I found the keys. I got you loose and it was you who saved me from the fire.” Liz said, trying to make sense of the fragmented memories in her brain, new memories combining with old ones. “I remember how someone carried me through the flames. I always assumed it was my father.” 

Reddington neither denied nor affirmed her suggestion. He needed her to remember without help, he needed the memories to be true, so she could never accuse him of having influenced her in any way. Some day she would learn the whole truth, but the truth would have to come from the inside, not from false memories elicited by hear say and conjecture. The past was still a vague blur to her now, but in time, it would all take form. In time: they would both have to be patient. 

“Sam told me that when you started to talk again and he asked you for your name, you told him it was Lizzie. I can only assume that your mind remained in survival mode those first few weeks with him. And then you just went on with your life as Lizzie, Sam’s daughter.”

Liz thought about that for a moment, straining her brain about those first weeks with Sam, but her mind drew a blank. She ran a hand through her hair, sighing in frustration. 

“This is scaring the hell out of me, Red. I feel like I’ve just discovered I suffer from a multiple personality disorder and never knew about it.”

“You’re not and you know it.” Red said decidedly. “The mind has a funny way of dealing with crisis and trauma, especially where young children are concerned. Children are the most resilient people in the world; they automatically do what is needed to survive. Something very bad happened to you as a child, Liz, and you survived by temporarily adopting the identity of fictional girl, a brave girl, a girl that would survive no matter what.” 

“So you had nothing to do with erasing my memories?” 

He gave her an uneasy smile. “Ask me something else.” 

“Why can’t you tell me the truth, Red? Why all this secrecy?”

“Because the truth will have to come from you, only then you will be able to believe it. It's up to you and you alone to solve the riddle of your past, but I will be with you every step of the way if you will let me.” 

“You’re not making it easy for me to believe you. You can't deny the fact that your cooperation with us has led to the elimination of many of your enemies. It has made you more powerful than ever. How am I supposed to believe that you are doing this from the goodness of your heart; solely for my benefit.” 

“The two do not necessarily conflict.” he said dryly, clearly his last word on the subject. 

Liz expression was worth a thousand words, every single one of them sarcastic, but she bit back the snide remarks that were brewing inside her. This was a man who was mostly acting in her best interest. He was also a notorious criminal trying to survive in the shark pond. He had offered the FBI his services; it was only natural that he would get something in return. If word got out that Red Reddington was a snitch, his life wouldn't be worth a penny. He was prepared to risk it all just for her. The reality of that notion drowned out her aggravation with only one thought surfacing in her mind.

“Why are you doing all this? “ 

It was a question she had asked herself a thousand times. She stared at him, her gaze locking with his, a sudden daring in her eyes 

“What am I to you, Raymond Reddington?” 

“You would like me to define my terms, is that it?” 

“I suppose so.” 

“We’re not related in any way, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“That’s not what I’m asking.” she said. “I’ve dealt with the daddy issue, Red.”

“I thought as much.” he said.

  _And therein lies the problem_ , he thought, because unlike her, that particular part of their relationship was still really rather quite an issue for him.


	14. Daddy Issues

Raymond Reddington could not get past the fact that it was'nt appropriate that he felt the way he did. He’d only ever had paternal feelings for her, knew full well that he had used his secret bond with Lizzie as a surrogate relationship with the daughter he had lost. He was her silent benefactor, he took care of her like a father would, and now the situation was evolving into a daddy-long-legs like tale; his feelings for her had changed decidedly when he had met her in person. And that was a development he hadn’t included, nor considered in the equation.

“I was your guardian,” he said fully aware of the fact that he was evading her original question. “I’ve come out of the shadows to help you make the rest of this difficult journey. Like a silent partner, if you like.” 

“And what else?” 

“And.... I feel responsible for you. I owe you. I owe you my life, quite literally in fact.” 

“And what else?” 

“And ...I care about you. I care about what happens to you. I want you to be happy and live a normal life when this is all over.” 

“And what else?” 

“And ....”  What the hell did she want him to say?

The words she needed to hear were burning on his lips, words that would forever change their relationship, but he owed it to her to keep it all in. Mister Kaplan was right. She deserved something else, something better, something ..... less complicated.

“I think you should ask me something else now.” 

Ever since he admitted to her that he was not her father, he had noticed a subtle change between them as if an invisible barrier had been lifted. It was in the casual touches, the stolen looks, the fact that she no longer froze up whenever they discussed subjects that were a no-go area between parents and their children. Talking sex with your dad is embarrassing and he had noticed the stickiness in the atmosphere whenever the subject came up. He still regretted mentioning Deep Throat and the G-spot in her presence. But all that changed after her pressing question. And he had set her mind at ease. The awkwardness between them slowly vanished. It was evident that she no longer regarded him as a father figure, but apparently this did not make it easier for her to deal with him. 

Like most people, Liz liked to define the individuals in her life, assign status and roles to them, so she could play the part society expected of her. She was the enthusiastic, hard working agent that made Cooper proud to have her on the team. She was a good partner to Ressler, his trusted other half, his back up, and his shrink whenever he needed one. She fitted right in with Samara and the rest of the team and had reserved a special place in her heart for Aram, enjoying his shyness and praising him for his ability to work digital wonders with his gadgets. There was only one person in her life that made it difficult for her to apply this form of typecasting. Raymond Reddington was elusive as a handful of sand. Whenever she thought she had him figured out, he would say or do something that caused her to drastically revise her opinion about him. 

The only steady element in regard to Reddington was the fact that he intrigued her to no end. He was never far from her thoughts, her life revolved around him, because she knew that he was the key to her future. It was scary to realize that this stranger had intimate knowledge about her. Initially this created resentment on her part, but despite herself, she had developed a love-to-hate-him attitude towards him. He could tell that she liked the special position she held in the Task Force and in the life of a notorious criminal, who would go to great lengths to please her. He was relieved to see that despite all that had happened, she still trusted him and had started to care about him, allowing herself subtle intimacies he cherished - and feared. Feared because of what they did to him. 

Liz leaned back in her chair, apparently giving in to his request, watching him in silence for a moment. Then, out of the blue, the words just rolled off her tongue.

“You killed Sam.”

It took him completely by surprise and he visibly cringed in the pillows. That was not quite a topic of conversation he was looking forward to either. 

“Lizzie, I...”

“That is the bravest thing I can imagine anyone ever doing for another human being. Sacrificing your piece of mind, living with the memory of ending the life of the one you love.” There were tears shining in her eyes, but she did not cry. “I know it was what he wanted, but he should not have asked this of you. No one should have to live with the memory of actively ending the life of a loved one.” 

She had reconciled herself with Sam’s death and the way he died. She had been angry, yes. And she had projected all her anger on Reddington when she found out that he had played an active role in Sam’s death. But when the worst grief had faded and common sense replaced the anger, she understood that this was the way Sam had wanted to go. 

She took a deep breath, glad that she had finally told him how she felt. It was the last stage in the process of grieving and she had postponed it too long already. She looked at him, considering her options. Might as well hit him with another fact of life that hung heavy between them, like lead in stale air.

“You killed my real father too. Is that why you wanted to be a father to me? Out of guilt?” 

“I’m afraid I’m not so sure anymore that your father died in that fire, Lizzie.” he said, ignoring the daddy issue and his motives. “I now have reasons to believe that the mechanism that has been set in motion, long before I ever contacted you and the FBI, was orchestrated by someone who was closely connected to your father. Recent events, specifically Hal, have led me to believe that he is still out there and he’s coming for you.”

Liz took a moment to process his words. A few days ago, she would have been overjoyed to hear that a blood relative was still alive and out there, looking for her. But with the newfound knowledge about her father, a surge of cold fear rushed through her veins and she suddenly realised that the dominant feeling she’d always had as a child in connection to her father had been just that: fear. 

“And he probably knows that the way to find me is through you.” she filled in. 

“That’s an accurate assumption." 

“Is that why you are working with us? Eliminating possible enemies before the adversary gets too strong?”

“No. Well, yes, but ... it’s complicated.”

“O, how I love a definite answer. No, yes, but; that about covers all possibilities, doesn’t it?”   

“I don’t think I quite want to tell you about that just yet.” 

“O, you don't do you?,” she leaned forward, the atmosphere suddenly relaxed between them. “Well, Raymond, that brings us right back to the question we started with. What am I to you?” 

He regarded her with amusement, his heart lightened by the fact that she had forgiven him about Sam, thanked him even for taking that load off her shoulders. 

“You know, you remind me of a man I once knew ...” 

Abruptly she leaned in closer, almost bumping into his broken nose, a playful threat curling around her lips.

“I swear if you start telling one of your stories again, I will find a way to shut you up.” 

Reddington’s eyes flared as she moved closer even, their faces only inches apart now, her gaze trained on his lips, her intentions abundantly clear if he would let her.

Whether it was the pleasant tingling of the drugs inside him, or the sudden look of wonder and awe in her eyes, he could not decide, but he lost all sense of sound judgement the moment she touched his cheek in a tender gesture. His whole body responded to her caress and he breathed out as if it were his last breath, losing himself in those dark, glittering eyes, aching for more. But she waited. She waited for him to grant her permission. 

“There once was a young man called Pat.” he spoke, a daring look in his eyes that skidded dangerously towards pleading. 

She took him up on the challenge and leaned in a bit more, her lips touching his now, the electricity arcing through the very air between them. 

“Who didn’t know where he was at,...” his voice, lowered to a mere whisper, was smothered when she put her lips on his. 

It was, simply, a kiss. And it was so much more than a kiss. It was a gesture of caring and innocence and quiet passion. It was a declaration. And the honesty of it scared them both. 

Liz broke contact and for several long moments, they didn't speak at all. They stayed as they were, merely regarding one another, seeking assurance of what they were about to do was what the other wanted - what the other needed. 

Reddington reacted in the only way he knew, alleviating the sudden seriousness that threatened to smother the growing passion inside them. 

“Are you sure you’re not taking advantage of the patient’s weakened state, nurse Keen?” he asked. 

“I hereby solemnly promise I will, Raymond.” Liz said and took possession of his mouth again, while she climbed onto the bed, moving over his body, careful not to bruise him too much, sinking against him in clear surrender. 

Reddington lay back, allowing her free reign, his last coherent thought being that Kaplan’s wrath would now fully descend upon him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise I left a lot of questions unanswered; a trick I learned from the writers of the show. My main drive is not to solve the mystery of the past and offer a plausible solution; I am interested in character studies, interaction and like to play with certain themes they touch upon in the show. 
> 
> No idea where the show will takes us. They will probably construct a complicated plot around the mystery of Red and Liz, but I like simplicity; the idea that they saved each other's lives back then would be my favourite plotline.
> 
> Thanks for reading, leaving comments and kudoing. It's always nice to see that there are actually people out there who read my ramblings.


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